


i think i better go (before i try something i might regret)

by soulofme



Category: Easy Love - Fandom
Genre: Angst, M/M, nick sucks highkey, poor Val
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-28
Updated: 2019-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-05 01:23:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21205799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: "What are you trying to accomplish?"





	i think i better go (before i try something i might regret)

There’s a flashy postcard in the mail, glossy paper printed with the image of a palm tree and an orange sunset. Hawaii, 2015.

_How do you feel?_

He reads the words over and turns the card towards Val. She plucks it out of his hand with delicate fingers, nails painted blood red. Her pretty little lips curl down into a frown.

“I thought you didn’t give him your address.”

“I didn’t.”

She doesn’t call him out on his lie, but she does snort and fling the card towards him. Nick barely manages to catch it, rubbing his thumb almost reverently over a fold near the top of the card. It’s an old memory now, but somehow he swears he can taste the salt of the sea and feel the warm press of lips against his neck. He could get lost in it, if he really, truly tried, but he can feel Val’s eyes boring holes into the side of his head.

He crumples the card up and tosses it without a second thought.

There’s a café Nick likes to frequent, not because it’s good but because it’s cheap and he gets to be alone. Once upon a time, he’d drink so much coffee that he’d been shaking by the end of the day. But those times had come and gone, much like college had.

The bigger point is that there’s a window, and if the pane of glass is cold enough, he can see the way his breath clouds it, blurring the outside world from view. And then, very easily, he can pretend that nothing exists except for himself and the park down the street that a boy with big eyes and a bigger smile can usually be found.

The world’s spinning.

Everything is bright and colorful and he clambers about on shaky feet, grabbing onto the nearest body he can. His head is pounding but so is his heart, and he feels like he might scream when Ace laughs loose and liquid right into his ear.

“Hey, man,” he begins, but the rest of his sentence fizzles out into nothing.

He rests his body weight on Ace, not even caring that the poor bastard buckles beneath him, heavy hands tight around his biceps, mouth forming words that Nick can’t even understand.

Somewhere in the crowd, he sees Sammy. He’s with Della and Nora—his fucking _sister_ of all people—and they’re laughing and smiling and Nick wonders if they’re talking about him, ever, for even a moment.

He pushes through the crowd, ignoring Ace’s shout, and grabs Sammy around the wrist before he can think about it. Sammy doesn’t protest, but he feels Nora push him, hard enough that he has to turn around.

“What the hell?” she’s saying, and he rolls his eyes and makes his way for the door.

They stumble up onto the roof. More accurately, Nick stumbles and Sammy follows after him in a slow, measured pace. The drop from here down to the lawn isn’t that high, not high enough to kill him at least, so Nick feels a bit better about dropping himself down, legs hanging over the ledge.

Sammy stands a sensible distance away, hands tucked into his pockets.

“You sent me that fucking postcard.”

“I didn’t want it.”

“And you thought I _would_?”

There’s a beat of silence and Nick wonders if Sammy’s taking the time to rethink his actions.

“Val’s pissed,” he continues, throat feeling like it might close up over the name, and Sammy raises one eyebrow slowly, mockingly.

“Sorry.”

“You’re not.”

Sammy presses his lips into a thin line. He looks the same as ever, which is the probably the most frustrating thing about this. His hair’s bleach-blond and he’s got a tiny nose stud that Nick considers ripping out, just to hear him scream.

It’s a dangerous line of though, he realizes, a road leading to a destination he doesn’t really want to reach. But Sammy is comfortable and easy even when Nick almost, _almost_, wants to punch his lights out.

“How’s Val?”

“Fine.”

“Yeah?” Sammy smirks then, and it’s the only hint of expression Nick’s seen on his face this entire time. “She still gunning for me?”

“You were a piece of shit.”

“Yeah, well,” Sammy murmurs, licking his lips until they’re shiny and slick and Nick feels his stomach swoop. “Shit happened.”

“Huh. Funny.”

“Wasn’t trying to be.”

Sammy sits down next to him. Not an inch of their bodies touch.

Val’s waiting up when Nick stumbles into their apartment, eyes narrowed. She sighs when she sees him and cards a hand through his hair, nails scratching lightly at his scalp. Nick closes his eyes and leans into the touch, feeling the steadying hand she places on his shoulder.

“You reek.”

“Sammy was there. Asked about you.”

Val’s hand stills, if even for a second.

“What’d you say?”

“Not a goddamn thing.”

The next time the gang gets together, Sammy is missing. It’s like old times. Ace, Della, Val, Demian, Nora. Nick.

No Sammy. Which is good, fine. Whatever.

Nora does her sisterly duties, hovers over him like she’s their mother. _Are you eating, how are you holding up, what’s going on, you never tell me anything_.

Nick sits there until she grows tired and retreats back to Demian’s side, who wraps an arm around her shoulders and presses a kiss to her hair. It’s still weird, seeing his best friend cuddled up his little sister, but Nick’d gotten over it. Eventually.

Unlike other things in his life.

He and Della walk along the shore while Demian and Ace attempt to get the bonfire started. She bumps his hip with her own, eyes bright even in the darkness that surrounds them.

“Val still at your place?”

“She’s got nowhere else to go.”

“Right, yeah,” Della agrees, soft, and pinches his side. “Where’d you go with Sammy, anyway?”

“Nowhere,” he says, not sure why he’s lying.

Della’s eyebrows crease with concern. “Does Val know?”

“There’s nothing to know.”

“Jesus, Nick,” she says then, voice raising in volume, before she quiets herself and sighs, all big and disappointed. “She’s been pining after you since college.”

“She knows I’m not interested.”

“Because of Sammy?”

“Not—” He stops, takes a minute to compose himself. “Not everything is about Sammy.”

Della doesn’t look nearly convinced.

“What are you trying to accomplish?”

Sammy glances at him from beneath his lashes, trying to look coy, and it pisses Nick off in a way he doesn’t expect it to.

“Believe it or not, but I don’t give a shit about you.”

“Neither do I.”

Sammy laughs, loud and unapologetic.

“You’re the worst liar, Nickolas Hwang.”

When the walls he’d so carefully built up come crumbling down, Nick loses himself in Sammy. Well, Sammy’s body, but still _Sammy_. He sounds the same, feels the name, rips Nick’s heart up and tears it into pieces the same fucking _way_.

But Nick chases after him like a goddamn addict, and when he comes home smelling and sex and weed, Val greets him at the door with watery eyes and a wobbling chin.

Nick ignores her and collapses into bed.

He chases after Sammy again and again, but he’s not stupid enough to expect anything. One night, Sammy has his head pressed against his chest, blond hair tickly the underside of Nick’s nose. He feels like he’s suffocating, in Sammy’s shitty shoebox apartment, on his mattress that creaks if you so much as twitch, but he doesn’t move. Doesn’t push Sammy away. Doesn’t end whatever the hell this is supposed to be.

Because deep down, he’s still hurting. And Sammy’s tending to his wounds in the worst kind of way. The _best_ kind of way.

“Do you still love me?”

Sammy’s sitting at the counter, sipping innocently at his coffee, swinging his legs.

“Am I supposed to?”

“Dunno,” Sammy mumbles, shrugging. “You sure act like you do.”

It’s real bad timing on their part that Val shuffles into the kitchen, shirt sleeve drooping down on her shoulder. She doesn’t seem to realize Sammy is there until she stops half a foot away from him. Her mouth opens and closes but she doesn’t say anything, not until Sammy raises his eyebrows at her.

“Hi,” she says shortly, eyes searching for Nick’s across the room. He stares at the coffee pot, at the steam curling into the air, just so he doesn’t have to look at her face. “Nick didn’t mention you’d be around.”

They don’t talk about Sammy’s lack of shirt or of the bruises on his ribs, his neck, his swollen mouth and wild hair, tangled like someone had raked their fingers through it a thousand and one times.

“Morning,” Sammy says, as if she hadn’t spoken at all, and Nick can practically hear her heart break.

She doesn’t mention it, not until Sammy is long gone but the smell of coffee still lingers in the apartment.

“Did you—” Val stops, presumably to collect herself. “I found somewhere to go.”

“Okay,” Nick says, robotic, and nods. “Cool.”

Val shifts before him, wringing her fingers.

“I never had a chance with you.”

It’s not a question, but a statement, one that sounds like Val’s repeated to herself over and over and has finally accepted. Nick’s mouth goes dry. He doesn’t answer, doesn’t say a goddamn word just like always, but he doesn’t need to.

Val can read him like an open book. He’s sure she hates what she finds, but she’s a bigger person than he is. She smiles and presses a kiss to his check and Nick thinks, somewhat dramatically, that this is it.

“We can’t keep doing this.”

Sammy tilts his head to the side but doesn’t respond. Nick feels nauseous, like he might puke his guts up right here, right now. His stomach lurches and he grinds his teeth together.

Sammy doesn’t question him, doesn’t beg him to stay. He stands and makes his way into the bedroom without glancing over his shoulder, like he knows Nick will follow without any prompting.

When he stands up, head screaming at him to stop, to cut this bullshit out, Nick thinks he hates Sammy almost as much as he hates himself.


End file.
